Autumn already?!

Is this normal, or does Autumn seem to have arrived early in anyone else's garden?
Most of my plants are 'turning.' Are they ill, is this normal, or is Autumn arriving early everywhere?

 

The seasons are so unpredictable now TT. Most of my annuals are finished and I'm just about to start pulling them out. We had a good spring and summer this year on the island so they flowered early and have now finished early. It looks like we could have some good weather in September which sadly will be to late for the plants. It's going to be a long, bare winter in the gardens I think!

 

My dahlias, roses, geraniums, cosmos and petunias are all still going strong. Nigella, hollyhocks, phlox, lobelia, crocosmia and Leucanthemum are finishing. Strangely a container clematis is flowering again. Fuschias (young plants) have been pretty disappointing this year. 10p gladioli plenty of leaf but no flower spikes. Planted them very late though the dahlia tubers planted same day caught up. :-)

 

My dwarf lilac tree is pink already, and all my dogwoods are turning. My willows and robinia are yellowing, prior to leaf drop (hoping this is just a sign of the seasons changing and not illness). My dwarf peach has been stunning all summer, but looks like it's finished now, grape is dying back... actually, most of my fruit trees look past it now.
All my plants are in containers, I don't know if this would affect anything?
One of my hollies has red berries already...
There is a slight chance that the garden may have been under-watered while I was away (I did pay the neighbours to water it, but if you want something doing properly...). Is there a chance that under-watering might bring on an early Autumn, do you think?

 

My polytunnel tomatoes stopped growing when the cold weather came. Before that I was tying them up every other day and was putting canes up to and along the roof in anticipation of them growing another few feet.

Saw michaelmas daisies in full bloom 2 or 3 weeks ago and I normally think of these as something to eke out the last few blooms of flowers grown for cutting at the very end of the season.

 

Quite simply and straight to the point, not quite, next week we see a bout of warm weather along with copious amounts of sunshine heading our way in from Iberia.

 

It definitely feels like Autumn here guys..The wet and windy weather we have had over the past few weeks points to an early Autumn.Feeling like this is sure gonna make it a long winter GRRR!!

 

It's not just the UK either! The acers and liquidambars here are starting to colour, which they wouldn't normally do until November. Most plants are still doing well, though, thanks to the unusually high rainfall this summer.

 

Pah! Just the effects of an early Spring and a cold snap caused by hurricane Bertha (or whatever it was called). Weather will warm up into September, although plants that have started to shut down won't stop doing so, but it will prolong things, particularly if we get an Indian summer.

Biggest problem is that the early Spring means that single-season plants have done much of what they can, and took the cold snap as a trigger to shut up shop, but I doubt the weather will turn Autumnal for a while yet (so long as we don't get any more ex-tropical storms coming the wrong track up the Atlantic ...)

 

Anybody got a forecast for this impending heatwave as I can only find forecasts that it's going to be a degree or 2 warmer next Friday, then it returns to current temperatures



I remember this forecast on 31st July this year for a heatwave in August http://www.express.co.uk/news/natur...-300-YEARS-on-way-as-jet-stream-BOILS-Britain

Hmmm, I seem to have missed that, but what I can remember is it being 10 degrees C in the middle of the and lashing with cold rain.

 

I expect you missed last Winter's "Coldest for 300 years" or whatever they predicted ... they are so unreliable you could probably set your watch by the opposite of what they print! Why anyone wastes their money buying their made-up tripe beats me ...

I doubt you will get a forecast more than 5-7 days out that is worthwhile ...

 

Bring it on!!!!!

Val

 

The only thing to take from a Daily Express weather forecast , is they are always over hyped and 100% wrong. That newspaper is a complete rag.
For me summer ends in the middle of October , we very often get lovely weather in September and early October. never write summer off to early - winter is long enough as it is !

 

That's what's so brilliant about tender bedding and half hardy perennials, they can keep the garden looking summery until October when hardy perennials have long since gone seedy.